In a blitz of media interviews Monday night, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford reiterated his apologies and lashed out at his many opponents.

The Ford Nation premiere "was kind of evidence of a new level — that there’s no bottom to this anymore,” said Paul Benedetti, a journalism instructor at the University of Western Ontario. “There’s just nothing these two guys won’t say.”

In a blitz of media interviews Monday night, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford reiterated his apologies and lashed out at his many opponents — a message media strategists say is self-defeating.

“You can’t really mix aggression and contrition. It’s like trying to mix oil and water,” said Daniel Tisch, president of public relations firm Argyle Communications.

The Ford brothers’ new Ford Nation show premiered Monday night on the Sun News Network. On the hour-long show, taped Sunday, Rob and Councillor Doug Ford alternated between discussing the mayor’s personal issues and attacking their political rivals.

“I know in my heart everyone has personal problems,” Ford told viewers. “I urinated in a parking lot … what does that have to do with anything?”

But Ford’s apologies were undercut by the accusations he leveled at his critics, experts say.

“It’s a contradiction between a story that could engender compassion among the public — which is one of repentance, contrition — versus one in which the mayor goes on the attack,” said Alex Sévigny, director of professional communication programs at McMaster University.

“You can’t really have that both ways. Either you’re sorry, and you’re contrite, and you let people feel compassion for you, and you kind of go quiet for a while, or you go on the attack and you don’t apologize for anything,” Sévigny said.

Ford also appeared on CBC’s The National Monday night in an interview with Peter Mansbridge.

“He actually did sound contrite,” said Tisch. “That just reinforces how bizarre it is that he is mixing aggression and contrition. It just doesn’t work!”

Other commentators were even more blunt about the Ford brothers’ new television platform.

“Remember this night. Either a new low or a new beginning in Canadian politics,” Robin Sears, of Earnscliffe Strategy Group, wrote in an email. “I remain hopeful this political pustule will explode and fade.”

“The show was kind of evidence of a new level — that there’s no bottom to this anymore,” said Paul Benedetti, a journalism instructor at the University of Western Ontario. “There’s just nothing these two guys won’t say.”

Benedetti said the Fords tried to stick to their narrative of standing up for the little guy: “These guys are pretty adept at trying to tune in to this sense of a kind of David-and-Goliath inequality in Toronto.”

Ford also appeared on CNN’s AC 360 Monday night, in a segment where he and Doug met CNN producer Bill Weir at a Toronto Community Housing building on Queen’s Plate Dr.

“I don’t look at myself as the mayor. I look at myself as just a normal, everyday person,” Ford told Weir.

“What it says, I think, is this is all very personal for him,” Sévigny said. “He’s acting like somebody who is personally aggrieved.”

The CNN segment is the latest in a string of U.S. television interviews by Toronto’s mayor. Sunday, he spoke with Fox News’ John Roberts, and Monday night he sat down for an NBC interview slated to air Tuesday morning.

The interviews got extensive coverage at home and around the world; in the past three days, the Fox and CNN interviews were mentioned more than 200 times on Canadian television and more than 700 times in the U.S., according to analysis by media monitoring firm MediaMiser.

But analysts say Ford’s appearances on U.S. networks are of limited value to him with the people who matter: Toronto voters.

“The Ford brothers think they used CNN and Sun to get their message out. In fact, CNN and Sun used them for entertainment,” Tisch said.

“In the United States he’ll never be anything but an object of ridicule,” Sévigny said. “Anything that happens in Canada is only an oddity.”

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